Happiness what is it?

This is a rhetorical question and I do realize that.  When I was in college writing classes, we, as students, were told to avoid the rhetorical questions when writing.  I never understood why, still don't.

Very few of us take time to ask what truly makes us happy.  Probably because many people are too busy running the kid or kids to basketball, football, recitals, play dates and the entire gauntlet of what we think we are supposed to do instead of what we'd truly like to do.  When young, we don't plan for a career in a job we might really enjoy going to every day.  Instead, we run a rat race of jobs just to bring in money to pay our bills, mostly jobs we hate.  I say we, but I did find work that was truly satisfying to me.  A career of helping others because when I needed help as a single mother, there was the hint of helping when all the while it was simply adhering to a set of fixed rules to just earn a paycheck.  How unsatisfying that must be for too many people.

Sometimes we think happiness is a cell phone glued to our ears, a video game controller in our hands or a computer screen in front of our face.

My husband and I live in Indiana right now.  After years of working in the Social Work field, I foolishly decided that I missed my state of origin, New York.  We moved back there, to the Finger Lakes area and were there for a period of five years.  Don't get me wrong, the Finger Lakes is a beautiful area but unfortunately, beauty does not pay the bills.  The cost of living since 2008 has gone through the roof.  We are retired and in those five years of struggling, realized we were merely surviving and not living.  We came to the conclusion that New York was no longer home for us.  Maybe the saying: 'You can never go home again': applied to us in that situation.   We lived in, what I liked to call, a dumpy trailer for about three years.  It was chilly in winter and hot in summer.  Being an older trailer, it felt like living in a tin can in hot, humid weather.  There was air conditioning, but little insulation so the conditioners were not very effective. Finally, we wised up and moved back to Indiana.  Yes, we have a bad governor, but, then, so does New York.  For the most part, people are friendly and it is a whole lot cheaper living here.

We recently moved into a 'new' old house, a house that is affordable, one we could not have afford in New York.  We would pay as much for a cramped apartment in New York, but that's not my idea of happiness.  Here we have a lovely backyard and one of the best vegetable gardens we've had in years.  We are already picking tomatoes and zucchini for our table.  We adore gardening and love it even more when we reap the benefits of fresh vegetables each night for meals. 

                          Garden when first planted

                            Garden close to maturity



I also love planting flowers and we were fortunate enough to inherit peonies and rose of Sharon bushes.  The bushes are flowering now and look beautiful.  I planted four o'clocks from seed and sowed wild flowers and morning glories from seed.  Now it is high summer and all are thriving.

                         Peonies in May

                         Four O'clocks planted from seeds

                         Kentucky Wonder pole beans

                                   Our patio fountain
                                    
                          Patio flower box     

Whatever happiness means to you, I hope you find it and hope you stop to smell the flowers along the way.

Nursing home diaries

Now this is aging

Today I talked with a sweet lady who lives here, and she is carrying a stuffed cat on her lap.  She tells me that she had a wonderful cat when she lived at home.  I'm listening to her and my heart goes out to her.  Every nursing home should have at least one cat roaming the place.  So many people living here have owned animals and miss them terribly.  Funny, I complain about landlords who do not get the pet/owner connection, but shame on a nursing home that does not get it.  This is the paying customer's home, bring in pets damn it.

Nurse aides:  What can be said about nurse aides?  What can't be said about them?  They are the backbone of every single nursing home.  In Culture Change nursing homes, aides are assigned, permanently, to one small group of residents.  Those aides are familiar faces, every single day, to their own small group.  Aides in traditional nursing homes don't even get invited to care plan meetings, a great travesty, in my opinion.  Those aides know their residents on a much more personal level than any of the nurses ever do.  Aides at a care plan meeting can give more insight about how your loved one is doing because they spot any changes long before nurses or doctors do.  If you really want to know how your loved one is getting along, ask their aide, you will learn much more than you would from nurses or doctors.  

If you have a loved one in a nursing home: Have you hugged their aide today?  

Available at: Amazon.com

Barnes&Noble.com

Kindle edition

Nursing Home Diaries

     
                              When life seemed so simple



Morning meeting went well, the Administrator laced out the maintenance assistant in front of a crowded room of coworkers.  We all felt that one, the look on the guy's face made us all cringe.  This Administrator is quite a shrew, she lit into him much more than was necessary.  Other days she has reamed out nurses and dining staff.  Ruling with an iron hand, she thinks if she puts fear in our hearts she has the upper hand.

I pick up my tablet, behavior sheets from nurses and aides and my pen after morning meeting, I can't seem to leave that room fast enough.  Back in the office I look over behavior sheets.  One says a resident, here for rehab and who is quite alert, complained about not getting taken to the bathroom fast enough.  I don't know how many times I tell nurses this is not a behavior, he has a right to complain about crappy service.  

We have to read these sheets every morning at meeting and when I got to the one concerning the lady who wants a room all to herself and freezing, then roasting her room mate out, the Administrator says: "Can't we send her someplace?"  Sure, I'll send her to live with you.  The lady wants a private room and she is acting bitchy to the room mate.  There is no cure for bitch.  The woman hates it here, I don't blame her one bit for that.  I do feel sorry for the room mate, but then, if nursing homes weren't so greedy, they would not have 2 people assigned to one small room.  Can we send the rich owner someplace? 

Families and such

With the holidays coming up I tend to start to reflect on families this time of year.  Many people have great parenting experiences, yet some of us do not.  I could say I'm not sure why this is, but in our case, that would be a lie.  

When you have lived in an abusive household, with a parent who is mentally ill, one of the casualties is usually the children.  When a child has a parent who is absent, who does not care for their own kids, then kids cannot help but be affected in some ways.  When a crazy parent actually resides in the household, it also hurts the child or children.  As much as we, the not so crazy parent, may think we can shield and protect our kids, it isn't possible.  Craziness rubs off in ways we may not even fully understand.

What does this blog have to do with books?  Well I am writing a book about relationships, why bad ones are bad and about how for the past 14 years, I have seen the other side.  Moved beyond the dark side of a relationship, moved into the light of love and the fun of having an understanding and loving husband.  I am fortunate to have found him, but, unfortunately it was later in life.  Better late than never, in my case, but I wish with all my heart, I'd found him, or been wise enough to spot the duds I once thought I loved.

What in hell do we know in our twenties?  I don't know, maybe I'd have known more if my own upbringing had been different.  I don't blame my grandparents who raised me, but they were getting older as I grew older.  Their goal was to marry me off, as Grandma often said.  So I felt pressure to marry young.

I know many young women feel this pressure, even though we might like to think we are living in such an enlightened age.  But remember, people and human nature stay the same, only times and the tools we use change.  

The next blog will address how we, as young women,and often, young men too, think we know about life, know more than our elders, even know more than those scenarios we actually see.  You know what I'm talking, our very friends who have bad relationships, they often reflect our own we are in.  Yet, somehow, for some reason we still think 'ours will be different.'   Usually we repeat the same thing we see and hate, we walk straight into the fires of hell with our eyes wide shut!